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#270320 - 21/11/2005 16:38 Hitachi AX-M140, Cambridge Azur 640H
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
I wandered into Dixons today and saw this: http://www.dixons.co.uk/product.php?sku=490188

It's a mini hi-fi system with DAB radio, DVD player, and 40Gb worth of CD recorder. I daresay it's not gapless, it only supports MP3 and WMA (no lossless encodings), there's no phonos in or out, and I don't fancy trying to access a 40Gb collection using a 2x16 character VFD (there's no TV UI), but for UKP450 you can't really complain too much.

When reading up on it I also found the Cambridge Audio Azur 640H which does sound rather more like it (lossless, internet radio, streaming client, TV UI, CDRW, SPDIF out) but costs UKP500 as a line-level component. Judging from the back panel, it's based on a mini-ITX PC. Would be nice to know whether it runs Linux...

More and more companies seem to be finally realising there's a market for this stuff...

Peter

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#270321 - 21/11/2005 16:53 Re: Hitachi AX-M140, Cambridge Azur 640H [Re: peter]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
The back panel of the Cambridge Audio box isn't inspiring me with confidence on attention to detail. Look at the right hand side. In particular the on/off switch and the markings around it.

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#270322 - 21/11/2005 18:00 Re: Hitachi AX-M140, Cambridge Azur 640H [Re: tman]
robricc
carpal tunnel

Registered: 30/10/2000
Posts: 4931
Loc: New Jersey, USA
That image has to be a fake. The analog outs have the L and R markings upsidedown and on the wrong jacks. The lights inegrated into the ethernet jack are also too big it seems.
_________________________
-Rob Riccardelli
80GB 16MB MK2 090000736

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#270323 - 21/11/2005 19:32 Re: Hitachi AX-M140, Cambridge Azur 640H [Re: robricc]
tman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 24/12/2001
Posts: 5528
Quote:
That image has to be a fake. The analog outs have the L and R markings upsidedown and on the wrong jacks. The lights inegrated into the ethernet jack are also too big it seems.

Yeah. I noticed the phono jack labels were odd as well. Didn't see the giant Ethernet LEDs though. Whatever image that used for the ethernet jack must have been one with the integrated LEDs.

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#270324 - 01/01/2006 17:15 Re: Hitachi AX-M140, Cambridge Azur 640H [Re: peter]
altman
carpal tunnel

Registered: 19/05/1999
Posts: 3457
Loc: Palo Alto, CA
fyi, Richer Sounds in Cambridge has one of these with a perspex lid in their showroom. Mini ITX board (Epia) with a fan (doh!) plus a custom board with the audio stuff on it and an insane array of linear regulators for every subsystem (though why separating the front panel button power from, say, the HDD power, improves things escapes me).

Hugo

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